Today, the researcher Joan Massagué has received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of Biomedicine. Held in Madrid and chaired by the minister of Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia, and the president of the BBVA Foundation, Francisco González, the award ceremony has also been attended by authorities from the international scientific community and from the cultural and business world.

Joan Massagué, adjunct director of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and director of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York, has been honoured with this award for his outstanding discoveries in the field of cancer and metastasis. The BBVA Foundation awards recognize and encourage world-class research and artistic creation and provide monetary prizes amounting to 3.2 million euros a year.

Massagué has devoted more than twenty years to elucidating the role of the TGF-Beta protein in cell growth and division. His work has revealed that an imbalance in TGF-Beta receptors contributes to the spread of cancer cells. Massagué has also identified the metastatic features of breast cancer cells, which can be used to predict the capacity of tumour cells to spread into other organs. Thus, these studies have demonstrated that, on some occasions, it is possible to identify genetic predisposition in early stage tumours before the cancer has started to spread. Massagué’s work is an example of the need to answer basic biological questions in order to further our understanding of cancer, to identify new therapeutic targets, and to develop new diagnostic tools and new treatments.

Joan Massagué obtained his PhD in Pharmacy (Biochemistry) from the University of Barcelona. In 1989 he was recruited by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he currently serves as head of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program. Since the end of 2005, he has been the adjunct director of IRB Barcelona. Joan Massagué’s mission, together with director Joan J. Guinovart, is to design competitive research programmes, recruit leading scientists and formulate advanced research policies with the goal to make IRB Barcelona a first-class research centre in biomedicine. Furthermore, Massagué supervises a laboratory, known as the Metlab, which is devoted to the study of cancer metastasis. This laboratory works closely with his own lab in New York. IRB Barcelona is located in the Barcelona Science Park (Parque Científico de Barcelona -PCB-), on the University of Barcelona’s Diagonal Campus.